Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The angry rasher of
oaths made me open my eyes, but my head continued to rest on the cool,
comfortable bar.

"Jeez, gimme a
drink!" wailed one golfer as he shouldered his way to the wellspring of
the Nineteenth Hole.

"Make mine a
double!" bellowed his partner as he slammed the door.

"Never in my
life. . ." said the first, interrupted by a huge gulp of a short drink.
"Gimme another."

"Worse than the
Bataan Death March," confirmed the second as he wiped his chin with the
back of his hand, then signaled to the harried bartender.

Only shrugs and raised
eyebrows responded to this. These were golfers hardened by their own travails;
men who should have been home mowing the yard or pulling weeds or cleaning out
rain gutters or changing spark plugs or replacing light bulbs. Instead, they
loitered here, drinking, playing cards and telling lies. All with the knowledge
that better men elsewhere were taking their wives shopping or minding the kids.
These were men who had squandered a whole paycheck for a new set of clubs to
take another 3 strokes off their handicaps but instead put three new balata
balls into the water hazard on 18. So, no ordinary complaint would interrupt
their drinking, nor would simple whining induce any sympathetic stranger to
spring for a round.

"Six hours. I
tell you, Six Hours, to play a round of golf!" as he turned to face his
audience. "SIX HOURS, SIX Freaking Hours, Six Freaking, unholy
H-o-o-o-o-o-o-u-r-s-s-ss!" he howled. This garnered him some restrained
sympathy, but won him no hearts; we have all had slow rounds before.

"Six hours
walking, in 100 degree heat with 90 percent humidity, SIX HOURS and always
waiting, Waiting, WAITING." This was better, we would hear more. We
waited, too.

"Six hours walking
and waiting and standing and watching -- and THEN, the goddam marshal has the
gall to tell us on Nine to hurry up, cause we're walking?"

"'Why you
fathead,' we said, 'If you ever got out of the shadow of the clubhouse in your
cart you would know we've been waiting on the foursome in front of us the whole
time.' And then HE gets upset and on Ten says we weren't pushing the foursome
in front of us -- Pushing the Foursome in Front of Us -- PUSHING the FOURSOME
in FRONT of US! Well, we showed him," he chuckled and looked at his
partner who chuckled; then they laughed together, "Yeah, we showed
him."

Well, honest golfers
receive such bombast as this less well than whining, so he lost part of their
crowd there, but he continued on.

"Yeah, we drove
into the foursome into the fairway, that hurried THEM up," but a few of
the more conservative audience members murmured their disapproval. "Yeah,
then we hit our approaches while they were still putting out, scattered 'em
like bowling pins," and there they lost the moderates; the disapproval
hung over the bar like black crepe at a funeral.

Sometimes, one must do
something; noblesse oblige, I think it is called. "Perhaps, you gentlemen
would join me," I said, raising my head from the bar. "Sorry to
interrupt, but I think you will profit by what I have to say, and perhaps, you
may observe the skills of the raconteur, which you so obviously lack.

"Six hours IS a
long round and the marshals can be overbearing, considering the unexalted state
of their office, but still, one must always remember that Golf is the game
apart, unlike the others. Because your primary opponent is yourself, courtesy
must always be part of your game. That is, overcoming your own failings and
frailties in the face of the implacable forces of Nature as they are manifest
in Golf is an activity that transcends time and space, or the mortal accounting
of scores between companions and Par.

"I can see by
your puzzled expressions (some might liken them to stunned mullets) that you do
not understand. Let me just say that it was wrong to drive into the foursome
ahead of you, not because of the danger to them, but because of the weakness it
showed: giving in to the wrath imposed on you by the course, the weather and
the Marshal.

"I cannot condemn
you, for I have fallen before, too. This is the story I have invited you to
hear."

*

I do not always play
here at the course where I am a member. Sometimes, I must have a change. One
wife, one job, one house for a lifetime, I can understand; but occasionally, I
must play a different course.

The foreign features
of new sand traps and water hazards hold an unexplainable attraction for me.
Unfamiliar undulations in strange greens entrance me. Blind landing areas where
I have not been before cause my blood to race. Half-hidden pins I do not know
beckon to me like the Sirens to Ulysses.

So we, my regular
partner, J.D. and I, had gone to Cypresswood for a game. It was hot, like this,
but we were riding, not walking, on the old course, not the new Creek course.

As I say, the great
thing of a new course is how you can compare it to courses you know well,
contrasting the pro and cons of each. The first hole borders the driving range,
as it does here, but on the other side, so J.D. had the unique experience of
hunting his ball on the range after his big slice while I extricated myself
from the copse on the left. My third shot landed in some water left of the
green hidden from view by a mound, while J.D. caught the lip of the monster
trap on the right. So we didn't get our pars. And what with hunting for balls
on the range and flailing in the monster trap, we might have been a little
slow.

But not so slow as to
justify the rancor of the Marshal who bore down on us like an avenging angel,
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he roared. "Why
haven't you gone on to the next tee?"

"Well," I
said, somewhat nonplussed, "I just thought I'd reclaim that new Titleist I
put in the water here," while I de-telescoped my ball scoop.

"Well, you
thought wrong!" he thundered. "When you finish a hole, you must
proceed directly to the next tee. You must not mark your score on the green nor
practice putting nor go fishing for balls," he said, like he was listing
three of the Ten Commandments. "There's a foursome waiting on a
twosome," he finished grandly, gesturing behind us. Now speed it up!"
And he was off, like a Pony Express rider, presumably to harry foursomes ahead
of us.

Now I commonly do not
take well to such close supervision, but J.D., being more phlegmatic, simply
said, "Come on, Cactus. Get in the cart and let's go." So we did.

After we hastily
scruffed our way around the dogleg on the picturesque Second hole, the short
par four Third and the tricky Fourth with huge loblolly pines guarding the
right side of the fairway and a creek crossing the fairway in the landing area,
it dawned on us that, truly, haste was making waste; that indeed, it was
manufacturing the stuff in industrial quantities. So we decided to slow down.

Let me pause for a
second to examine the other side of the proposition which we are met to
consider here: i.e. that Golf is properly a game of leisurely studiousness,
rather than a sprint handicapped by oversized batons. It is incongruous to
suppose that one can pace hurriedly to the ball and then implement a measured
backswing. How often does it occur that a foursome of anxious type-a heart
attack candidates rushing through their game, plays through other groups with
the kind of wretched golf which only has speed as a positive attribute? Every
time, I would suggest. If speed was the only criteria, then the fairways would
be made of concrete and the greens, of asphalt. Instead, Golf is played
properly on carpet fairways and velvet greens, either in park-like forests or
on windswept, sandy links, which fully manifest Nature's bounties and
challenges to man. One can never fully appreciate nor overcome the essence of
Golf at top speed.

If, in addition to the
obstacles of Golf, the elements and the terrain, and the competitions against
Par and partners, the player adds the merciless, implacable ticking of the
clock, then he has denuded the experience of the enriching components that make
it the supreme recreation and replaced it with a mechanized torture foreseen by
Fritz Lang in his movie Metropolis. One foresees with foreboding this
heinous concept gaining official imprimatur in tournaments, when penalty
strokes are not enough and time limits are instituted, leading to endgame
strategies similar to basketball and football.

Although we can all
agree that slow play is an abomination, we must also concede that an unseemly
haste is equally unwarranted.

The par three Fifth is
all water carry to a large, sloping green with several sand-trap cut-outs, in
other words, you can't just get up on the tee and flail away; you've got to
check the pin position, wind direction and the actual length before you hit. So
it only made sense for us to take a little time, especially after getting such
poor results on the previous holes. We figured together that the pin was in the
front left between the water and a sand-trap cutout, the wind quartered from
right to left and the distance was 155 yards. J.D. cut a 7 iron pin-high on the
green and I pushed a high draw past the pin to the middle of the green. He got
a birdie and I got a par, so we were well satisfied that we were back on track.

J.D. was so satisfied
that he jacked his drive through the dogleg on Six and I demonstrated my
pleasure with a pull-hook into the woods on the left. I caromed a three iron
shot from out of the trees around the punch-bowl mounds to the froghair of the
green. J.D. bladed a ball down out of the woods, over the mounds and on to the
green. I chipped straight uphill into the cup with my Texas wedge, while J.D.
settled for two-putt par.

"Damn," I
said, "if you could putt you'd be dangerous!"

"We better pick
it up a little bit," said J.D. "or that bunghole Marshal will get on
us again." Well, you know, it takes time to find balls in the woods and
then to play shots out.

Number Seven is
another par three with water carry and sloping green. For some reason, this is
a double green shared with the Twelfth. In my case, that was a good thing,
because I hooked my tee shot onto that side of the green, leaving me a nice
little 150 foot birdie putt. J.D., trying to hit smooth and easy, blocked his shot over by the barb wire fence
that marks out of bounds.

I couldn't putt at the
pin, because of a sandtrap cutout, so I just putted as close as I could as
quickly as I could, so as to get out of the way of the approaching foursome;
unfortunately, the slope of the green took hold and dragged my ball to the front
of the green. J.D. had a restricted swing that caused him to chili dip into a
trap. Then he blasted over the green into the rough while I left my next putt
halfway short. J.D.'s chip onto the green couldn't bite and it rolled all the
way down where mine had been. "Be sure you turn on that putt," I
said, "it's a long way uphill." From there, he and I both
three-putted for an easy six and seven.

"Well, that was
fun," said J.D. walking back to the cart.

"Yeah, it gets
any better, I'm going to give up sex," said I.

"God, I love this
game," said J.D. and then caught his breath, for there was the Marshal,
again, on the next tee, scowling down at us like Moses at Mount Arrarat.

"Now I can see
why you have fallen behind," he said bitterly, standing feet apart, holding
his clipboard clasped to his heart and the other fist on his hip, very
aggressive body language, you know.

I grabbed my driver
and climbed up the elevated tee, "Oh, shut up, you old fart, what do you
know about it anyhow. We'll play reasonable golf, if you quit hassling
us."

J.D. is, as I have
said before, made of the right stuff, and it's nearly impossible to make him
show irritation. He'll allow himself the luxury of an oath if he puts a ball in
the water, but basically, people don't bother him. I could tell, though, he was
getting ready to make an exception for this Marshal. Even so, he was going to
calm me down. "You're up, Cactus. Take it out on the ball."

Under such inducement,
I was able to fend the ball off the heel about 150 yards down the left hand
side of the fairway, leaving me more than 350 from the green. J.D. boomed a big
slice that ballooned up and right into the trees, out-of-bounds, but it kicked
back out into the near rough, 175 yards out.

"Truly, you boys
are awful. Don't get lost while you're wandering around."

I was searching my
memory of the rule book for the penalty for assaulting a Marshal, figuring I
could bear a couple of strokes. J.D. just gestured towards the cart and said,
"Come on, Cactus."

What followed was an
abysmal series of topped balls, fat hits, foozles and shanks. It was more like
we were herding rowdy sheep than playing golf. A look back told us the Marshal
was still at the tee, but he was still with us, like a bad odor in a closed room.

We struggled over the
Ninth hole without covering ourselves in any glory, then went directly to the
Tenth tee.

Now we had sometimes
waited on the group ahead of us, and we had been in sight of them all day.
Because they had stopped for refreshments at the halfway point, they were just
leaving the tee when we got there.

I reckon nothing is as
nerve-wracking as waiting to hit in golf when you're already ready.
"J.D." I queried, "You reckon they'd let us play through?"

"Hmmm. That's a
thought," replied J.D. "The Marshal couldn't very well bitch at us if
we're passing people."

"This round is
shot anyway; let's just get it over with."

"Ok,"
drawled J.D. and then he whistled at the foursome ahead of us. One cart was in
the trees on the left, next to the Ninth fairway; the other, in the trees on
the left, next to Sixteen. But they did not wave us through. "Oh
well," sighed J.D., slumping in his seat with his feet upon the front of
the cart, cigarette smoke curling indolently around his eyes.

When we finally could
hit, we both landed in the fairway for maybe the first time all day. Then we
waited some more while the group ahead putted. When we could hit, we both
missed the green, chipped onto the green and two-putted for bogeys.

We caught the group
ahead on the next tee, but again they ignored us. It was very much like the
previous hole. Wait and hit. Wait and hit. Pitch, putt, putt and wait some
more.

I reckoned I could
take this pace, but J.D. was likely to run out of cigarettes, smoking one
between each shot.

As the group ahead
left the Twelfth green, a lone figure appeared on the mounds to the left, above
the green. "It's that goddam marshal again," grumbled J.D. and he
shanked his 8 iron into the wasteland right of the green.

"Watch
this," I said, then I bladed my 7 iron directly at the marshal. We watched
him pirouette out of the way and my ball skip over the green into the lake on
the backside.

"Hey, I didn't
appreciate that!" cried the Marshal as we drove up.

"Well, that was
an accident," I explained, "but we don't appreciate you crowding the
green while we're trying hit approach shots, AND, we don't appreciate you
haranguing us at every opportunity. Since you've been standing here since we
passed by on Six, you know damn well that every group is haunch to paunch. If
we'd been hitting any sooner, the group ahead could keep score for us."

"I don't think
our score cards are large enough for the numbers you boys are putting up."

"Well, listen to
this: we are both two-over here on the back nine to this point and that group
ahead of us wouldn't let us play through, so you can just BACK OFF!" J.D.
has mentioned in the past that I do tend to get carried away.

"You can't talk
to me that way! You can't talk to me that way!" screamed the Marshal.

"I can and I
will. Now, do you mind, we're trying to putt here."

"We'll see.
"We'll see about THAT, mister." yelled the Marshal and he scuttled to
his cart and took off for the clubhouse.

J.D. shrugged,
impervious as ever, and holed out for another bogey. I had to settle for a
triple bogey. As we waited, on the tee of the short Thirteenth, J.D. said, in a
mild reproof, "I've never been kicked off a golf course before."

"Well, I
have," I admitted, "It's no big deal -- inconvenient, of course, not
to finish your round. Maybe we could play just a little faster."

"It's too late
for that," said J.D.

"Well, then,
we'll just have to play a lot faster," I soothed him. "You're
up".

"But they're still
in range," protested J.D.

"They're off the
fairway again. Hit away," I commanded.

That hole sets up
perfect for J.D. with a dogleg at the right distance for his normal big fade.
But he was rushing a little bit and sliced it too much into the trees. It's
wrong for me, hooker that I am, but by making my grip so weak I was practically
hitting one-handed, I managed to block mine out in the same direction.
"Now that's cart golf!" I declared.

The deleterious group
ahead of us hardly noticed our advance till I was ready to hit, which was as
soon as I reached my ball. Amidst their cries of "Hey!" and
"Wait a minute, there", I hollered "Fore!" and whaled away,
semi-skulling the ball towards the green, out of the trees. "Go ahead and
hit J.D., you' won't reach the green from in here."

With very apparent
misgivings, J.D. addressed the ball; his swing was half-hearted, but as
sometimes happens, the solid half-swing works better than the mis-hit full
swing. His ball hissed on a frozen rope toward the green four feet off the
ground till it got to the trap in front of the green, where it ballooned
straight up forty-five feet, landed softly and stuck.

Only J.D.'s amazed
pleasure at such a miracle shot mitigated his embarrassment as the group on the
green started and whirled at the sudden intrusion. They watched us roll up to
my ball like the Jets eyeing the Sharks in West Side Story. Without any
preliminaries except a wave of my club to warn them, I popped the sandwedge
shot over the treacherous traps in front to near the hole, jumped back in the
cart and wheeled over to the green.

Now I am sure that
every duffer has gone through this cycle of torment. He arrives at the course
intent on playing an intelligent, strategic game, THIS time, not like all those
other times. THIS time, the duffer resolves, there won't be any underclubbing; THIS
time, he will play within himself; THIS time, a carefully orchestrated routine
will ensure that every swing is premeditated and correct. But the strategy
falls apart quickly, and in desperation, on the back nine, the duffer tries to
go back to his "natural" game, with no practice swings, no strategy,
no doubts: "just grip it and rip it" he tells himself. And miracle of
miracles, it works. For a while.

One way or another
J.D. and I had arrived at this point. Where before, our haste had cost us
strokes, now casual free swinging was an improvement.

I was past caring, but
J.D., ever the conscientious gentleman, said, "Excuse us while we tap in
these pars." The nonplussed foursome on the green made no objection.Then
we made our graceful exit to the next tee, having passed two foursomes on one
hole.

"Now THAT,"
said J.D. "is Rapid Play!"

We scurried on up to
the tee of the par 3 Fourteenth, where one foursome waited on another.
"Mind if we play through?" I breezed as I teed up my ball.

"You won't get
anywhere," laconically replied one of the golfers, "We're waiting on
them waiting on the group in front of them."

"Please excuse
us," said J.D. as I clubbed my ball into the face of the elevated green.
"We're sort of in a hurry," and blew his ball over the green.

By hustling to our
cart and to the green, we got there before they were through putting. We leapt
out of the cart, putters in hand, trotted to our balls and hit without
preamble. J.D.'s ball rolled all the way from the back of the green down to
five feet from the pin. "That's good, J.D., you've been making those all
day." I hit mine fairly hard, even for a Texas wedge, so it would climb
the steep slope of the elevated green. It flew off of that slope in a high arc,
as good as any flop shot, and died four feet from the pin.

"That's good,
Cactus. 'Preciate it guys!" boomed J.D. as we raced off the green. That
foursome still stood as they had when we had arrived, as if frozen by the chill
wind of our passing.

At the Fifteenth tee,
we found the next foursome already in the fairway. "Hit or wait?"
asked J.D. with some reserve of decorum I should have realized he possessed.

"Hit," I
said, "We could pass three groups on this hole!"

So we hit and
proceeded down the fairway, where again, unexpected, we weren't noticed right
away. When the cart slid to a stop by my ball, their heads did turn, mouths
open. I was too close to my ball to hit, but instead of moving the cart, I just
grabbed my putter like drawing a rifle out of a scabbard and gave it a polo
style whack.

"Cool," said
J.D. admiring the natural draw my Bullseye putter put on the ball. "Let me
try." He uses an oversized Nicklaus putter with a tongue on the back for
picking up the ball without bending over, so it's good I was driving: he could
never have hit his club left handed, where my putter is flat on both sides.
Sure enough, he put a toe-hook on the ball with plenty of roll, without any
delay, and we were able to roll off away from the foursome before they could do
more than splutter their objections.

We were the
Cypresswood Express, now, with no whistle stops; Top Priority; all others
routed onto sidetracks while we roared through. The foursome in the fairway
were just blurs to us, like the slack-jawed faces you glimpse in a filling
station in a small town where you hardly slow down, much less stop.

We had the distance to
go for the green in regulation, even though a creek runs in front. We got to
mine first. I don't know if you have ever played golf cart polo; I never had
before or since, but it seemed just to flow naturally out of the game that day.
I slowed down, but didn't stop, judged the distance from cart to ball
perfectly, deliberately hit the ball on the toe to deaden the ball, but kept
the club face square, kept my hand behind the club head and hit down on the
ball to give it height. This gave me a nice, soft shot that stopped dead on the
front of the green. J.D. instead hit kind of a pitch and run that hit the slope
of the elevated green and then climbed up onto the putting surface, almost
pin-high.

"Yee
Hiiiiiiiii," hollered J.D. as I swerved the cart on two wheels, skirting
the edge of the creek, to get back to the cart path bridge. "Whoa,
Nellie," he whooped as I skidded to a stop by the green.

The empty carts of the
next foursome belied their presence. They must have been in the woods or the
creek bottom; they were nowhere to be seen.

It was against our
rules to stop and address the ball -- just an unstated evolution of the game to
which we had tacitly agreed. As I strode to my ball, I saw the slope of the
green, the subtle mounding in my putting line and the dull sheen of grain
working against me; but I didn't THINK about these things, I just saw them. I
gave the ball a one-handed stab at the cup in mid-stride, missing by a few
inches. J.D. putted at almost the same time, with as little care, good for a
birdie. He popped his ball out of the hole with the head of his club in one
smooth motion, while it was still rattling in the cup, then nonchalantly
turned, shovelled my ball up waist-high with his club to me in stride as we
both walked back to the cart. "That's good for par," he said.

There was a foursome
on the Sixteenth tee. "Heck," said J.D. just hit from here,"
dropping his ball in the prescribed manner from his seat in the cart. His club
swooshed and the ball flew in a fine low fade to the front right corner of the
green, perfect for that hole, a 160 yard par three. I gave mine a left handed
hook to the same spot right away so we were treated to the sight of two balls
trickling down the green incline toward the hole. The slope of that green is so
resolute going down to the water that few people can hold that green, but we
had played it perfectly. "Thanks a lot, boys." waved J.D. as we
scooted around their carts, while they gaped, open-mouthed.

There was never any
thought of danger to ourselves, most of those duffers couldn't hit a green in
regulation in three tries on a bet. If a ball did hit us, it wouldn't hurt.

We made it to
greenside while those balls were still rolling. "Shoot, that looks good to
me, J.D."

"Wait here,
Cactus, and I'll get 'em." So, like in some old army picture J.D. hustled
out onto the green with balls splooshing in the water and spiffing in the sand
around him, scooped the balls up with his putter and came back to the cart.

Now that we were well
rehearsed in our routine, we hesitated only slightly drawing up to the
Seventeenth tee. I whipped the cart left of the cart path, ball washer, trash
can and bench. J.D. gave the occupants a jaunty wave that spoke volumes:
"Hello there. Pardon Us. Playing Through. Thanks a lot." We dropped
balls beside the cart and flailed away, two low skimmers crossing in front of
us like anti-aircraft tracer fire. Then we were off.

Seventeen is a short
par 5 with water on the right, woods on the left and a creek in front of the
green, none of which gave us any cause to pause. Our polo style shots were not
long, but they were accurate. You know the cliche that even on a par 5, you
could hit your 5 iron three times and reach the green, but you can't do it with
a driver, 3 wood and 9 iron, because each shot is pressed. That's what we were
doing. It turns out that you can reach almost any green in three, or four,
hitting polo style putters from the cart.
Even a skulled hit from the cart went 150 yards. I weaved the cart from
side to side of the fairway from ball to ball -- an excellent evasive action,
by the way. The instinctive reaction of the other golfers was invariably to
stop and wait till we had passed -- they were still in the mode of controlled
effort, which requires sepulcher-like quiet -- but I reckoned that providing
only a moving target was safer in case someone's irritation exceeded their
decorum.

Without stopping, it
goes without saying, I circled around the back of the green to our balls, where
once again, we chipped with our Texas Wedges, then conceded each other's putt,
and we were off.

There was only one
foursome on Eighteen. We ignored them the way a confident golfer can ignore a
water hazard. We teed off in short order and for short distances. A cart
entered the cart path from beyond the green, coming towards us. We swatted our
second shots in motion as the cart inexorably drew closer. Sure enough, the
Marshal had caught up to us. "Get off the course. Get off the
course!" he shouted as he passed us -- he was thinking we would pull up to
talk to him, I guess, but we just kept going. I was on course to play my short
third shot to the green, while J.D. had swivelled in his seat to look back at
the Marshal, who was turning in pursuit, when he saw something else, beyond
him. "Holy Moly!" he exclaimed.

Well, that put me off
my stroke, and I couldn't make a play. "What, what!" I yelled as I
cut a doughnut in the fairway, circling back to my ball.

"Look," said
J.D., pointing, "A stampede."

Both of us pointing
must have distracted the Marshal because he first turned his head, then his
body, then his cart again, throwing up clumps of turf where he hit a boggy
spot, "Oh, my God!" he shrieked as he sped off, away from us, to the
larger problem.

You have probably
decided that I have exaggerated our success with our "polo golf"; you
may have even concluded that it is all a bald-faced golfer's lie. But the
evidence I offer here is that every golfer we had passed that day had weighed
the evidence of our triumph against their own feeble efforts, and changed their
style accordingly. A whole herd of carts, a stampede, as J.D. had termed it,
was rumbling down the Seventeenth fairway. The chaotic direction changes within
the mass looked like a Sunday regatta at the Yacht Club, while balls were
flying everywhere.

I grew up in a small
town out in West Texas. There was only a short nine-hole, unlandscaped golf
course where they played Winter Rules all year round. I would caddy for my
daddy when he would play. Sometimes, on Friday, when the men would gather after
work, to make sure everyone could get in his round, they would all play
together, fifteen or twenty or twenty-five men at the same time. They called it
a "rabbit hunt" because of the way they would wind up spread all over
the fairway in a ragged line, but of course, it was much more dangerous than
that, with all the shanks and heel-hits those duffers could produce off that
sun-baked hardpan. The betting was really complicated, too.

Somehow, that is what
I imagine had become at Cypresswood that day: a larger, more communal version
of the extremely liberating experience J.D. and I had enjoyed. One had to feel
some compassion for the Marshal and his fervor for his hopeless task, as his
cart sped towards the mob.

But J.D. and I just
circled around to our balls and finished our round. We drove the cart at
breakneck speed out to our cars in the far parking lot and left it there. There
was going to be hell to pay, for sure, and we were afraid our name was on the
invoice.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Well, first of all, let me get a drink. Jumping Jeremiah, it's hot out there. What a round. I never -- well, I guess I have -- but I rarely have had an afternoon like this. I can see you all are curious about our playing partner and I want to tell you all about him. I don't mind being the center of attention, but I like to pick my circumstances. Like the old pro from Springfield said when he was being rode out of town on a rail, "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd just as soon walk."

Thank you, bartender. J.D. is grabbing a quick shower, but I value a quick drink more, so here I am. When he gets here you can ask him if every word I'm telling you isn't true.

After years of playing dead even together, J.D. now must give me five or six strokes -- it was more for a while, but now he's backsliding into his old slicing ways, somehow he just can't seem to finish his swing the way he once did.

We were trading golf magazine tips on the first tee when the Man from Odessa joined us. We like to play in the heat of the day: we can always get a tee time and we usually play just as a twosome, so we get matched with a lot of other twosomes and singles, which is fine with us.

So this Harlan introduced himself and we all shook hands, and I have to say, he seemed like a sound enough person, a good old boy. Well dressed, too: a salmon colored golf shirt with a Golden Bear logo on it, cream colored slacks, two tone shoes and a hat of many colors emblazoned with "Permian Basin CC". Nice clubs, too. Ping irons, Taylor woods and a real-nice lightweight carrying bag.

We said we were planning to use the competition tees that day and Harlan said that was fine. We teed off without injuring anyone or damaging any property and rode off down the fairway, J.D and me in one cart and Harlan by himself in another.

That first hole is a relatively short par five, so even if you only hit every other shot with the meat of the club like I do, you can get a bogey, easy, and we all did.

Now it's hot at midday in Houston in late summer, but there was some breeze that day. The wind isn't much of a factor at that time; we don't ever pluck grass blades and toss them to the wind, but gusts occasionally hint of what habitable climates must be like. The main thing is the humidity, it just sucks the want-to out of you some days, so J.D. and I hardly ever drink beer anymore when we play, just some Gatorade, unless the game is so good or so bad that nothing else will do.

"Dang it's sticky out here," said Harlan as we walked up to the second tee, "It's a lot drier out in Odessa."

"Well, it's sort of an extra hazard down here," said J.D. "Do you want me tell you about this hole?" he asked, ever the compassionate host.

"Naw. Looks wide open to me," declared Harlan, "I'm not doing anything tricky, just trying to keep it on the short grass." J.D. shrugged indifferently. What we could tell him about this hole, he would have to find out himself: the usually dry creek bed that crosses the fairway 125 yards from the tee that gobbles up any skimmers; the hardpan on the right that keeps your slice rolling into the lake on Six; the desolate fairway bunkers on the left for any errant draw; the loblolly pines on the far left for any hook. Perhaps we worried unnecessarily, where familiarity with the terrors on Two had bred not contempt but craven apprehension. Trying to see it with the eyes of a man from Odessa, the second fairway does look wide open, even if the woods on the right and the bunkers on the left do pinch the landing area a little.

At any rate, J.D. hit a confidant Three wood to the cart path on the right, where it winds around the woods, and I hit a Driver short of the traps. Harlan stepped up to the ball and without much ado blasted his ball. He seemed to usually play what you call a Big Fade, and I guess ordinarily that would have been fine on Two. But he started it left, the wind gusted, the loblolly boughs swayed and a branch three-quarters of the way to the top reached for his ball like a right fielder going for a line drive at the foul pole. There was a sharp crack and the ball fell straight down.

"Hang it all," said Harlan, "What is this? We don't have trees like that in Odessa."

"Tough luck," said J.D. sincerely, for even we would not have thought to have warned him of that peril on this hole, "You really creamed it, too. At least you're across the creek."

That seemed small consolation to Harlan as he grumbled to his cart. The inconvenient part was that his ball had fallen inside the no-cart area, so we left our carts on the path and trudged over to the other side of the fairway to look for Harlan's ball. Tall, brown spear grass mixed with pine straw covered the ground where his ball fell, and it took a while to find it, nestled in a cluster of 100 foot tall pines.

"Shoot, you'll have to play a safety," quoted J.D. from some conservative golf magazine guru.

"Not likely," said Harlan, "If I can get a club on this ball, those trees are just 80 percent air.

Now maybe in Odessa among the live oak and mesquite that is true, but you all would hold an opinion to the contrary, I'm sure, being aware of the sturdy, unyielding nature of the average mature loblolly pine tree. But did you know that those trees were the preference of shipbuilders from all over the world for masts? I mention that only as a supporting argument that when surrounded with mast material, one ought to chip out of danger rather than blast away.

But the Man from Odessa knew none of that, and blast again he did. He couldn't pick it clean, but he hit it square. While it is true that the big sycamores on Five give a very satisfactory knock when a ball hits them, that really does not compare at all with the solid, resounding thock from a loblolly when squarely hit.

As we watched his ball disappear into the boulders in the dry creek bed behind us, I had to say, "Harlan, you're losing ground, boy," as a sort of tension breaker, and I think he realized I didn't mean anything by it, but for a second he gave me an extremely unfriendly, cross stare.

Fortunately, he had come equipped with an extra ball and a duffer's assortment of clubs, so it was short work for him to take a drop and lambaste a two iron over the bunkers.

"Finally!", he said, "Back in the saddle, now."

"You got all of that one," agreed J.D., "I guess you don't want me to mention the water on the other side of that bunker, now, though".

Harlan gave J.D. what I call a two-by-four-look, as if he had been clouted with a piece of lumber, and he never really lost that look the rest of the afternoon.

Although Harlan had managed to work up a sweat, J.D. and I were still well rested, so we scratched a couple of mid-irons up to the green and then watched Harlan drop another ball and fade it onto and over the green into a trap. From across the fairway, we could hear him clearly, "What is the deal with these greens, don't you water them at all? That was a great shot and the ball bounced like a superball on pavement."

"I figured you West Texas boys would play pitch and run rather than target golf anyway," I said. "This time of day, the greens are a little hard already."

"A Little Hard," cried Harlan, and it did seem to me he was getting a little goofy here, "I-10 in Odessa this time of year isn't that hard -- even asphalt starts to bubble after a certain temperature."

I admit that rubbed me the wrong way a little. Bear Creek is my home course, after all, and I can see you feel the same way. The differences in courses from place to place make the game more interesting and challenging. Though we all doff our hat in homage to the links at St. Andrews, if all courses were identical, surely our reverence would be diminished. Marvelous though Pebble Beach certainly is, think how bored with it all we would be if every course had that same finishing hole. So it was in a miffed silence that we putted out.

Things did not improve when Harlan looked at the challenge of the par three Third. "How am I supposed to pitch and run this S.O.B.?" he asked petulantly. "There's a creek in front and hair-lipped bunkers all across!"

This sort of confrontational denigration of my club chaffed me even more, so I told him the rest of what he did not know: "The green is shaped like a peanut, the pin is in the middle, there are deep bunkers behind the green and the wind's against us."

With caution grounded in experience, similar as on Two, J.D. and I both played conservatively, aiming well away from the hole, with the result that I lay pin-high off the green on the left and J.D. the same on the right.

"What'd you hit?" asked Harlan.

"I hit a smooth six iron teed up high," I replied.

"A seven," said J.D. "since we're against the wind."

"But it's only 135 yards," said Harlan.

"You really don't want to be in that front trap, at all," we said.

"Well, we got wind and sand in Odessa, too," said Harlan, "I'm gonna whale me a eight iron up there high enough to stick it."

We had to admire the pioneer character of the Man from Odessa, his courage to face an overwhelming challenge and the conviction that he could overcome it, sort of the Spirit of the Alamo, if you know what I mean. He mashed the ball, it soared in the air, the wind beat it down, it plugged in the front trap.

J.D. and I knew with foreboding what we would find when we got there, and our worst fears were gratified. Harlan did not react well.

"Where's my ball? Where's my ball?" he shouted from the edge of the bunker, waving his sandwedge like an Aggie brandishes his sabre. He didn't calm down when we showed him, either.

"Oh, for the love of Pete," he said, and grimly set forth to extricate himself. But one step into the trap raised new horrors.

"What is this CRAP?" he raged.

"It appears you are the first one in that trap today," said J.D. "They rake it up first thing in the morning, but when the sun burns off the dew, it tends to make it a little crusty."

"But, how'm I gonna. . .how'm I gonna?" sputtered Harlan as he surveyed his shot: his ball was not only buried, but also encapsulated.

Now you all have been there yourselves, and you know the only way to play that shot is to take a full swing, aim a quarter-inch behind where you think the ball is, keep your left heel down, your feet close together and make sure that you follow through so you can get the ball over the chest-high lip of the trap. Harlan's repertoire of sand shots probably did not include that technique; undoubtedly, he usually hit some sort of splash shot. What he tried to do was, spread his feet wide and hunch his shoulders, take a full swing, rock way back on his right foot and strike at the ball like he was splitting logs. Not even the sand made it over the lip.

"Aaargh, aaaargh, aaaaargh," punctuated each of his successive tries. The relief for all three of us was palpable when he finally got out.

J.D. and I both chipped up by the pin and tapped in for our pars, then we had to watch poor Harlan four-putt.

We had forgotten any ill-will caused by his previous brusqueness. Who among us has not had "one of those days" where every good shot falls short or goes long, or just left or right into trouble, and this was clearly such a day for Harlan. Even worse luck for him that it was on a strange course where his instincts and experience were of no use.

That is not to say that we were at ease on the fourth tee. Harlan's evident displeasure at the latest turn of events made him less than cheerful. He looked ready to explode. J.D. and I teed off with some small success; he wrapped his slice around the dogleg about 240 yards and I managed to skirt the big sycamores lining the creek on the right with my standard hook and wound up more or less in the fairway.

Harlan was still a little shell-shocked. On Two, every stroke had cost him another. On Three, it had taken him nine strokes to hole out from 135 yards. Sweat drenched his shirt, his hair hung in strands like a rastafarian, sand still clung to his clothes up to his chest. Rather than courageous or optimistic, I would have described his mood as grimly desperate. He waggled an unseemly long time, anxiously, wringing his club grips like a parson in a cat-house. He kept sneaking peeks down the fairway and changing his stance, then backing away from the ball in an attempt to gather himself. Finally, with a deep breath in and out, he addressed the ball and swung easily, when I fully expected him to lunge at the ball. It sounded good to me and Harlan's expression told me he thought so, too. But intent on swinging easy, Harlan had failed to follow through, which left the ball out right with his customary big fade on it. His face fell faster than the price of West Texas Intermediate when the Arabs agree on anything. His ball pinballed around a few sycamores and drained into the creek.

Harlan appeared to have an internal episode. His eyes were shut and he didn't say anything. Then he jumped into his cart and drove straight off towards his ball. Regretfully, I must confirm that he did not follow the cart path to the 50 yard marker, travel 90 degrees to his ball or keep his cart at the course level. It is also true that he drove over the red tee markers on the women's tee, unintentially, I am sure.

Showing a little valorous discretion, we said nothing about these infringements of course etiquette, but our mood as we looked back from our cart in the middle of the fairway to Harlan's position in the rough was a trifle anxious. We couldn't see him but we could hear him down in the creek bed under the sycamores amongst the Johnson grass. Reminded me of the time I went deer hunting in Arkansas -- I didn't know what was going to come bursting out of the brush up there, a deer or a razorback hog looking to put a zipper in my leg. After a while, a clump of tall grass and creek bottom came flying out, then almost as an afterthought, a ball trickled out into the fairway. The once dapper Harlan appeared shortly after, looking like John the Baptist after a locust dinner. He was wet to the knees and spattered from head to toe. Any commentary from us seemed entirely out of order, so we just clubbed a couple of beauties up on the green, took our seat back in the cart and watched Harlan.

His movements were measured now, as if every breath were a conscious effort. He selected his club like a duelist examining unfamiliar weapons. Desperation covered his features; white knuckles showed through the mud; I thought surely he would top. But Harlan hit a winner, a gorgeous parabola that landed softly 8 feet from the pin, inside J.D. and me. We even got out of the cart to examine the divot -- the best turf taken I have ever seen.

But Harlan was in a hurry. He had raced to the green and was pacing irritably while we moseyed up, measured our putts and tapped in for pars. You know, it hadn't gotten any cooler while we were out there, so we were still pacing ourselves. With deliberate haste, Harlan stepped up to his putt and rammed it at the hole. Had it gone in, had it hit the back of the cup and popped straight up and in the hole, I am sure things would have been different. What did happen, though, was that it rimmed the cup one and a half times and then lipped out behind the hole.

I've never seen such a shot, nor has J.D. or anyone else. I would like to give Harlan credit where I can: he calmly put in that little knee-knocker, THEN he helicoptered that putter off into the trees lining the creek, all in all, a rather astonishing throw.

I do not think it can be a coincidence that Celtic sports are so uniformly amenable to displays of emotion: throwing telephone poles, rolling boulders and flailing shileleighs, and these are all arguably antecedents to Golf. So although we were somewhat nonplussed by this violence on the course which always seems so out of place, in another way it seemed like the only proper response. Once again we trailed Harlan to the next hole.

At the Fifth, Harlan's enthusiasm, if you want to call it that, caused him to take just a little too much turf with his tee shot, causing his driver to snap off at the shank, even though the ball flew a respectable distance. He didn't get much roll, however. On the green our unspoken question was answered when Harlan two-putted with his 1-iron.

"I knew this thing would be some use some day," said Harlan. "Like the Merry Mex says, 'not even God can hit a 1-iron', but I can putt with it."

Such was our desperation that we looked on this humor as a good sign, that we had turned the corner. But that was before Harlan got a good look at the water hazard on Six. He stood on the tee dismally surveying the water carry like the Chosen People must of looked at the Red Sea.

"What ocean is this on your golf course?" he started, "Where do the freighters dock? How many fathoms deep is it?"

"Where are the small craft warnings?" he continued, "Shouldn't we be evacuating the low-lying areas? Judging by those whitecaps, the high-tide is going to cover us all!

"How'm I supposed to hit over this water onto that postage stamp? Do you have Iron Byron in your bag to hit your ball? or a howitzer?" he finished.

"What I usually do is lay up to the side," I offered.

"Lay up? Lay Up? LAY UP? On a par-three?" Harlan shrieked and we could tell, he was getting worked up again. "That's not golf, that's some sissy game played by . . . by sissies!"

"Suit yourself," I said and put my 5-wood 35 yards short of the greenside traps on the right.

"Looks good to me," said J.D. and put his 3-iron a couple of yards away from mine.

An ancient passion gripped Harlan, but he could still reason. He reached for his driver, and it was painful to watch as he realized it was not there, that he must settle for his 3-wood.

I suppose there are players who can reach that tiny green against a cross-wind with enough on the ball to hold it, young flatbellies in college, no doubt, who have no fear born of disappointment and disillusionment. However, Harlan would not be one of those; not today, when the greens were wind-blown and sun-baked, not with his big fade.

His first blow went too high, too much into the wind and never had a chance to reach the green; it plonked into the water short and left.

His second rode the wind too much, all the way across the target and into the water, short right, with a rather spectacular sploosh which was followed by the whirring of a club destined to join its ball.

"Dang," said J.D. and a look from Harlan told us that we were superfluous to the proceedings, and we retired to our cart, expecting that he would be awhile.

"Don't guess you want to drop a ball up there by us?" Which he did not dignify with an answer.

In short order, Harlan whistled a couple of line drives under the wind short of the green, followed by his 5-wood. Then the gusty wind died down long enough for him to drill a 3-iron into the bank just above the water line. It bounced straight up about 20 feet, then rolled up next to the hole. Harlan stood for the longest time contemplating this last mockery, and, in the end, decided to add the 3-iron to the lake.

This was all starting to wear on both J.D. and me. He chipped over the green and I chipped short, then we both two putted for double bogeys. Harlan had a gimme, but neither J.D. nor I felt like risking his wrath by mentioning it.

I have seen other players putt with an iron successfully before. I saw Gentle Ben in the Davis Cup one year break his putter in anger and putt out the round with a 1-iron. But there is a definite knack to it. I have been told that it's really easier to use a wedge as a putter than a 1-iron, because the face of the 1-iron is harder to square up for a putt than the blade of the wedge. I wouldn't know.

At any rate, Harlan pushed his gimme left. He dropped his 1-iron, clutched his head and bent over in agony. Silent wracking sobs shook his shoulders. Then with eyes wide as saucers, he straightened up and tapped in.

On Seven Harlan hit his 1-iron from the tee, with a big fade against the crosswind so that he wound up in the middle of the fairway. It would have been better if he had still possessed a 3-iron, since his 4-iron left him a little short. Still he was able to get up and down, more or less, for a bogey which moved him to say "You know, I think our courses in Odessa are a little longer than this." Which J.D. and I chose to accept as a sign of life.

On Eight, he enjoyed the same gracious treatment from the wind on a shorter hole for his drive. He rolled his second shot up on the green, pushed his first putt past the hole and rolled it in for a par.

"Now I'm getting the hang of this course," he said.

I've always thought it was a little too precious to have that plaque on the Ninth tee, proclaiming that the Texas Golfer Magazine has judged that hole the toughest ninth hole in Texas, but still, it IS a very challenging and attractive hole: a dogleg left with 75 yards of water to carry in front of the very narrow green.

Harlan beat us both to the tee box and with no ceremony, rifled a line drive down the fairway.

"I hope he decides we play too slow, or else quits to take a shower," J.D. said, "This is too much."

In our haste, we each put our drives in the woods; J.D. on the left, me on the right. But that's neither unusual for us, nor much of a worry on this hole, since we figured to lay up in front of the water anyway, when we're playing from the back tees. Harlan, on the other hand, reckoned on a birdie.

Call it a superstition of mine, if you like, but I never like to hit the same club twice on a hole, never have had any luck with it and, of course, Harlan to reach the green had to hit his 1-iron again. Call it superstition, if you like, also, but I think the ball doesn't carry as well over water as it does normally, either. I think in Houston there is heavy air over bodies of water caused by evaporation. The short of it is that Harlan was in the water, again.

The Mystery and Wonder of Golf come from those reverses of fortunes and expectations. It can be a means to know the deity within oneself. The Intellect plans, the Physique executes and the Spirit exults or despairs, according to the results. The degree to which the golfer can integrate these faculties defines the extent of his golfing enlightenment, which is the measure of his ability to confront the golfer's true opponent, Nature, in its manifestations: wind, water, turf and sand. In Houston, we add heat and humidity.

The unenlightened play against other men, or Par, which is essential to the game, but irrelevant to the deeper essence of Golf. Mastery of oneself and of the elements is a much more difficult and gratifying enterprise.

Bartender, may I have another. Thank you.

Sad to say, Harlan was lacking in these elevated concepts just at that point in time; he had mastered neither himself nor the elements. So that was when he drove his cart into the lake. He had played hastily for six holes with mixed results, and now, in his anxiousness to play another, he overshot the end of the runway, so to speak. His cart launched off the fairway bulkhead, carried further than some shots I have made over that lake and landed with a spectacular splash worthy of Evel Knevel. Fortunately, he still had his 1-iron with him, for everything else in his bag went down with the cart. He waded back onshore, dropped a ball and took a stance.

Now it's only 75 yards from that edge of the water to the front of the green, so you could say Harlan was severely overclubbed for that next shot; for certain, he didn't need a full swing with a 1-iron. But he spanked it, right through the picture window in the clubhouse overlooking the Ninth green. Without an undue amount of contemplation Harlan dropped another ball and pitched it onto the green. He shouldered his club and strode off toward the bridge to the green. J.D. shrugged and wedged his ball onto the green and I got close. There wasn't too much more excitement to us holing out.

"I think maybe I'm going to need a beer to get through the back nine," J.D. said.

"Get me two," was all I could reply.

Now you might wonder that we would play on. And I can tell you wonder how Harlan could play on, what with the generalized havoc he had wreaked, including a cart in the water and a broken window. You might question why he had not been ejected from the course, if not placed under arrest. I don't know -- I got myself ejected from a course once for a whole lot less, but that's another story. All I can guess is that the proshop staff must have been engrossed in some ballgame on T.V. But to us, emotionally hardened by nine holes of Harlan's trials and tribulations, it just seemed like a really off day for Harlan.

He was a sight on the Tenth Tee. Where before he wore muted pastels, now he was a sodden solid lichen color, including his Quest for Fire Mud People hairdo, and, of course, he was down to one club and one ball.

"You'll have to keep score for me, now," he said, as he addressed his ball. Well, J.D. and me had to laugh out loud, we hadn't kept our own score since the fourth hole; we'd been playing double bogey golf and if we turned in that card, we'd be accused of sandbagging.

It never occurred to me to be offended that he kept taking honors on the tee, it just seemed irrelevant. But I did feel bad that I somewhat carelessly popped the top on my beercan in his backswing. That caused him to toe his drive off into the woods on the right.

"Wow, sorry, Harlan. We'll help you find that one," I said. And he didn't seem too upset, even though he headed right on off, instead of waiting for us to hit. Ten is pretty short, so J.D. and I just eased a couple down the middle. The green is guarded on the right and left in front by traps, so it helps to have a straight shot in.

It didn't take long to find Harlan's ball in the woods, among the roots of a leaning cypress tree.

As a teenager, I broke my Daddy's 2-wood that way, so I'm a little skittish about impeded swings, but Harlan still had no fear. An amazing thing when you think about it.

He had a nice, easy swing, but it was like trying to pick your teeth with a sandwedge. The ball jumped away from the tree a few yards, but the tree roots wrenched the club from his hands. Harlan shook his wrists a couple times, then picked up his 1-iron. The head was twisted on the shaft and bent back a little. He took one practice swing, then stepped up to the ball and whacked it again, perfect for this situation: low under the trees and cut back into the fairway. In fact, it rolled through the opening between the traps up onto the green.

J.D. and I managed to get our second shots over the traps, then onto the green, then two-putt for bogeys. Harlan got a par.

He had already broken one club and lost 12 others, not to mention a ball-retriever, umbrella, bag and cart; with one bent club and a ball with a smile like Jimmy Carter, I figured Harlan was done for the day, plus he had to be uncomfortable in his muddy, wet clothes. But he beat us to the next tee and drove down the middle without hesitating. Something I noticed, too. He wasn't hitting big fades anymore, just line drives with lots of roll.

Eleven is basically wide-open and long, which gave us free rein to hit big drives. We weren't keeping score, so this was basically a practice round, for experimentation. J.D. tried to hit his driver off the hardpan; I tried to fade a 2-iron around a willow tree. Harlan punched another bullet up towards the green that rolled into the trap. Even zigzagging across the fairway to our balls, J.D. and I beat Harlan walking to the green.

We gathered at the edge to watch Harlan study on how to get a ball out of a deep bunker with a 1-iron. He kept bending his knees more and more while laying the clubface more and more open till he looked more like he was cleaning out sewer pipes than hitting a golf ball. He swung the club like it was an axe. It was the most marvelous shot I ever saw: the ball popped straight up, bounced on the green-side lip and scooted over to the hole following the break like Foucault's Pendulum. It didn't even rattle the pin as it went in. J.D. and I hooted with delight, "Nice birdie, partner."

Harlan smiled for the first time since the second hole, but mindful of his ups and downs, he was not exuberant, "Just a tad lucky, I reckon."

Twelve presented another challenge to Harlan, a par three with an elevated green fronted by creek and bordered by traps, there is no way to run the ball up and, with the wind, it's real hard to hold the ball on the green with a 5-iron. Harlan crouched into another open stance, laid the club somewhat open and slashed the ball off the heel of the club to the right side. The ball seemed short off the tee, but then began to draw and ride the wind till it landed on the right side froghair. Deadened, the ball released and trickled for the longest time, four feet past the cup.

J.D. and I have both birdied that hole, when the wind was against us to hold the ball up and the green was still soft from rain, but never on a summer afternoon. "Good shot," we said reverently.

"I'll take it," he said. Where before he had been in a rush, he now seemed content to wait for us. Following his example, we crouched somewhat less than Harlan, laid mid-irons open just a little and used flat swings we had seen in golf magazines, without the same result. My second shot was from the Thirteenth tee. J.D. was able to lob a wedge up to the green from his drop by the creek. Harlan got his birdie, and we didn't.

"Two in a row!" J.D. exclaimed, "Keep it going!"

On Thirteen, Harlan's drive had too much draw and rolled out under the trees on the left. He stood upright, used a weak right hand grip and took a half-swing outside-in with a real strong hip turn. The ball started low under the trees along the left side of the fairway, then cut back towards the green and flew up as if it had hit an updraft. It landed past the hole, making a divot we could see from back there, and backed up down the slope, easing up to just inside the leather.

It was now clear. We were seeing the greatest trickshot exhibition of all time. "Un-forsaken-believable," said J.D.

I guess we have all seen those guys: hitting 250 yard drives with a taped-up coke bottle or knocking 150 yard approaches dead to the pin left-handed with the back side of a right-handed club, but that's always an exhibition of rehearsed shots, something between one-liners to entertain the crowd.

Harlan, on the other hand, had come through the fires of perdition on the front-nine and emerged with a character that enabled him to overcome adversity, impervious to the desolation of failure. He was in a groove now, in an ancient passion that led not to dissipation and destruction, but rather to accomplishment, like Robert Bruce when he saw the persistence of the spider. So you can see how he would not take kindly to someone interrupting his game.

But the Marshal had finally come. Zipping along from behind us, he screeched to a stop at the tee. "Where's your cart?" he demanded.

"Just walking today," Harlan replied mildly.

"Where's your receipt, then," the marshall insisted.

"Here," Harlan was only to pleased to oblige; the receipt had been in his pants pocket all this time. By carefully bulging his pocket he was able to get it out, but no one was ever going to read it. It was the same color has Harlan, pond-green and wholly illegible.

"Is that your cart in the lake on Nine? If it is, you have to come back with me. They want to talk to you in the office." The Marshall was fairly sure of his ground here. Although Harlan didn't act guilty, he looked guilty, sort of red-handed, in a manner of speaking.

But Harlan was having none of that. "Tell you what," he said with a look that would have chilled the blood of any man, "Let's play for it."

Trial by combat is as old as man himself, and it is no small achievement that mankind has elevated the concept to games where the contestants battle not to a mortal conclusion, but to something short of that, say humiliation or mere "agony of defeat". The stakes for Harlan were beyond the norms found on the golf course and nothing seemed more natural, I am sure, to someone from the territory once ruled by the six-gun.

The gunfighters had a way of presenting a challenge, non-verbally, that could not be denied, a cobra-like glare and body-language that seduced the victim into the confrontation with no retreat possible.

"What's the matter, Marshall?" cooed Harlan, " You Yellow?"

The Marshall had attempted to assert his authority. Harlan had not confronted it but used it against him, somehow, made the Marshall want the test. "All right, you're on."

"I'm just playing with one club," said Harlan, "J.D. will loan you his clubs, you're up first."

Marshalls play the course regularly, of course, in payment for their services; though he hadn't had any warm up, nor his own clubs, the Marshall got a serviceable drive off down the middle. Harlan stroked a smooth drive himself, a draw down the right side over the bunkers, just skipping by the corner of the water.

The Marshall was a golfer, and as such he recognized what a shot it had been. We were used to it and gave no more thought to Harlan's appearance nor his twisted stick nor his battered ball, but these had all weighed heavily with the Marshall in his decision to play. Now he realized that he had been out-driven by fifty yards; Harlan had wedge distance to the green and he had mid-iron. Regrettably, under the pressure, he wilted and sliced into the lake. With only a sideways glance, the Marshall jumped back into his cart and sped away.

"Y'all have one of those beers left?" Harlan asked.

Harlan finished his hole with aplomb and we proceeded to Fifteen,
a long par five. Harlan reached the green in two and missed his eagle by gnat's eyelash.

Just as we reached the Sixteenth, a cart came bouncing cross-country up to the tee; I recognized the driver as the assistant pro. He popped out of his cart with his Big Bertha in his hand. He strutted to the tee, poked his finger in Harlan's chest and said, "I'm going to show you a little golf, then I'm going to shake some change out of you to pay for a cart and a window." He stabbed a tee into the ground and made his backswing before Harlan said anything.

"Then I guess you won't mind if we raise the bet just a little?" Harlan asked in a voice you could pour over pancakes.

The assistant halted his swing with a strain that looked like it cost him a couple of rib ligaments. "I win, you pay; you win, you walk. How's that?" he asked in a voice you could use to chill martinis.

"Good enough," said Harlan.

The assistant stretched his glove. His neck popped as he rolled his head around his shoulders. He waggled like Babe Ruth in the World Series. He pounded the ball down the right hand side of the fairway.

Sixteen gives you plenty of fairway for a big drive, although water crosses the fairway in front of the green, angling left to right away from the tee. So the assistant's drive was perfect. Harlan duplicated it, but shorter.

Harlan's second from 125 yards away landed so softly, it didn't make a ballmark. The assistant seemed plainly amazed at the way Harlan had crouched and laid his club open to effect the shot. His 9-iron seemed to lack a certain confidence that you normally expect from the assistant pro, and it would be generous to say that his ball was on the green. He gave his putt a chance, but missed. Harlan curled-in his very tricky downhill putt.

What ever was said by way of concession was lost in the breeze as the assistant sped away in his cart. "Y'all sure do play a different game here than in Odessa," he said.

"I guess this is just a regular round for you," said J.D.

"Well, no, it's not. I figured this was normal for Houston, though," said Harlan, but he smiled while he said it.

"Have another beer," I said.

Seventeen is a pesky, par three with more water in front of a green with a narrow mouth guarded by steep bunkers with very heavy sand. Harlan seemed to use one smooth motion to put his beer down and glide a shot to the back of the green, like his follow-through always included chugalugging a beer.

Eighteen has got a plaque like Nine, identifying it as Texas Golf Magazine's favorite finishing hole, and like Nine, it is a long par four, dogleg left with water in front of the green. Waiting by the tee, insouciantly smoking a cigarette was the head pro himself. "Howdy," he said, "I just came out to ride in with you, maybe help you get cleaned up, get your checkbook out."

"That's real neighborly of you," said Harlan evenly, "a shower will be right nice. Though I hate to put these muddy things back on." The Pro nodded slightly to show he understood. "And even though I am playing well with this club, I was thinking I could use some new Pings, Harlan continued." The Pro hesitated only a beat before nodding again, and thus the wager was set: Harlan's previous victories counted for nothing, all the chips were on the table.

The Pro nonchalantly unbent out of the cart. He flicked his butt away and pulled his driver out. He strolled to the tee and casually powered the ball in a draw 300 yards down the fairway, in easy 7-iron distance from there. J.D. and I were impressed, but Harlan didn't register at all. He sidled to the tee indifferently and duplicated his last 7 drives, well down the fairway, but well short of the Pro's drive.

The Pro seemed confidant, but he had only the reports of his minions to go by, he had no way of judging the true capabilities of this stranger covered in mud playing with a bent club.

Since he was away, it took no longer than the time for him to walk to his ball and test the wind to show the Pro. He feathered the club as he had done on the back nine and hit it high. The ball bounced once, into the hole.

The last we saw of Harlan, he and the Pro had stopped the cart on the bridge so that last club could be offered up to the lake.

Pukka Dave

Pukka Dave

Pukka Dave -- The Bohemian Duffer

The Pukka is the European cousin of The Kokopelli . . . the aliases of the two overlap completely: Jackalope, Leprechaun, Trickster, Trouble-maker, et al. . . . it's not that the Golfer is looking for trouble, it's just that trouble is such an essential part of Golf, if you know what I mean . . . 8^D . . .